Persons with physiological visual impairments may utilize one or more mobility aids to navigate their surroundings. Such mobility aids may include, for example, canes, assistance animals, vision enhancement devices, and the like. Similarly, sighted persons encountering situational visual impairment, such as a dark or smoke-filled room, may also benefit from mobility aids that provide navigation assistance for their current environment.
Some mobility aids provide tactile feedback that indicates aspects of the user's surroundings, such as a cane contacting a curb on a street. However, using such aids may occupy a significant amount of the user's attention along with a hand of the user. Additionally, such aids generally provide the same amount and type of feedback of the user's immediate surroundings regardless of the context of those surroundings. As such, these aids are generally incapable of modifying or enhancing the utility of their feedback based on the context of the user's current environment.